A short, thoughtful look at how words can damage as much as fists.
A picture-perfect marriage is anything but.
Mike is a successful lawyer, with a thriving practice, two happy children, and a beautiful wife, Dayne. He has a life that many would envy, but as Hollett (What I Learned from Men, 2012) shows in her second novel, a relationship can seem flawless on the surface but be a mess underneath. Problems emerge early on; even their Hawaiian honeymoon is marred by Dayne’s volatile moods. Within a few years, the relationship seriously sours. Mike works 70-hour weeks while Dayne cares for the children and the house. She expresses her resentment via verbal barbs: “I’m telling you this for your own good,” is a common refrain when she’s not berating him for being a “selfish idiot.” Mike tries to ignore the abuse, but after nearly a decade, his own unhappiness festers. His wife has become “more and more dissatisfied” and drops a bombshell shortly after their 19th anniversary. Readers won’t be surprised, but Mike is shocked. The last third of this slim, briskly paced novel deals with his attempts to rebuild his life. Hollett ably depicts the way Mike’s troubled youth with an abusive father primed him to seek out similarly troubled relationships as an adult. It’s only after suffering severe psychological distress that he can address his emotional issues. Part of this process involves developing friendships with other men, particularly Jim, who serves as a surrogate father for Mike and delivers down-home wisdom in a folksy, if occasionally grating, dialect. Happily, Mike eventually responds to this good-natured, if awkwardly rendered, coaching.
A short, thoughtful look at how words can damage as much as fists.Pub Date: April 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5033-9138-3
Page Count: 230
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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